Friday 28 October 2011

Blogging Pro Job Board Highlights (October 24-28)

Blogging Pro Job Board Highlights (October 24-28)

Blogging Pro Job BoardHappy Halloween, everyone! There are still a couple of days before the spookiest day of the year. Have you gotten your costume together? Who are you going as?

It may be all about spooky in the next few days, but that does not mean we’re slacking off. Here is your weekly round up of jobs. Good luck!

Personal Finance Bloggers

Do you know where every single cent of your money goes? Do you have a tried and tested way to manage your income? If so, you might want to share your knowledge with others and get paid for it!

Copywriter for Progressive Beauty Company

I am not sure what a progressive beauty company does, but if you can’t help but check yourself out every time you pass by a reflective surface, then you could be the person for this job. Seriously, though, all you need is some mean copywriting skills!

U.S. Congress & Public Policy Writer/Expert

Are you a lucid and succinct expository writer that knows the ins and outs of the U.S. Congress? And I mean “know the ins and outs”. A company is looking for a real expert on the matter, and if that is you, go get the job!

eBook Writer/Editor

Are you the go-to person when it comes to “How do you…?” Why not put your skills to good use by writing for HowToGeek.com and get paid for it?

Technology-Internet-Computer Writer

If you spend lots of hours reading about the latest events and developments on technology, computers, and the Internet, this job will fit you perfectly. Of course, no plagiarism allowed!

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3 Ways To Increase Your Readership By Writing For Social Media Instead Of SEO

3 Ways To Increase Your Readership By Writing For Social Media Instead Of SEO

Social FeedbackThe dirtiest words in my vocabulary when placed in a certain order are as follows: Search Engine Optimization. It’s not that I find SEO to be dirty in principle, but rather the fact that jumping to the top of search pages in a day and age where there are literally millions of blogs isn’t as simple as it use to be. For that reason alone I attempt to write most of my content these days with an emphasis on creating social media appeal.

To accomplish my goal there are several important aspects of my content that I try to focus on.

1. Ask Questions At The End Of  Posts

This might seem like a no brainer but a lot of people fail to ask questions when finishing a post. As a blogger I always remind myself that my thoughts are mine alone and they may not reflect the views of my readership. By asking a question I form a relationship with each reader which means they are more likely to share their thoughts via Twitter, Facebook and other social media sights in order to discover what their friends think about the same topic.

2. Leave Something To Be Determined

I don’t answer every question on the face of the planet in each of my posts, in fact I often attempt to leave my posts open with unanswered questions. While I will typically address major themes in my articles I realize that my readers typically understand the same space I occupy or at least they understand some of it. For example in this article I could spend 24 hours coming up with 100 ways to increase social media interaction but I can just as easily provide my top ideas and then allow my readers to generate further conversation. While some conversation comes in the form of on-site comments I typically use Facebook Commenting on my personal websites to increase off-site reach. I also like to Tweet about posts I’ve written with descriptive titles that can open up off-site conversations even before my article is read. By placing some “responsibility” on my readers to generate conversation I am once again able to reach out to them on social platforms and generate more discussion which in turn can be used to lure readers back to my websites.

3.  Integrate Social Media Mentions In Your Article and Link To Them

Have you noticed the number of news articles and blog posts that now say something along the lines of “so and so tweeted” at which point a tweet is quoted. In my posts when I make that leap I like to link into the authors twitter page. I provide a link for two reasons, first the original author may see the link and reach out through Twitter or Facebook since they obviously use those tools and second because through my own researcher I have discovered that my readers are more likely to engage with me on social media outlets when I show them that I rely on those platforms on a regular basis.  While this method isn’t a surefire way to grow an audience it offers the opportunity to once again engage with the most active part of your readership.

There are many ways for which a writer can engage with their readers, while I would never tell someone to abandon SEO I will say that developing a loyal readership who will engage with your site even after they leave your web property is the best way to show future readers that you are serious about supporting your loyal followers. By supporting your followers you should  in turn end up with more pageviews and better on and off-site engagement.

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Wednesday 26 October 2011

What Haunted House Sites Can Teach Bloggers

What Haunted House Sites Can Teach Bloggers

The Mortuary LogoHalloween is less than a week away and it’s officially crunch time for all things horror-related. If you celebrate Halloween, there’s a good chance that you are either looking to or already have checked out a haunted attraction in your area.

But while haunted houses and other haunted attractions can be a good and scary time, they’re also businesses. Like most businesses, they need to have a Web presence to promote themselves, pass out critical information and, most importantly, interact with potential customers 24/7. Also like most businesses, haunted attraction sites have a particular style associated with them.

This style is determined by a large number of factors including the nature of the business itself, especially how seasonal it is, what customers are usually looking for in a haunted attraction and the relatively limited number of design firms that work on these sites.

However, in that style there are a lot of great lessons for other webmasters, including bloggers. While this is definitely a broad generalization, as someone who has visited dozens, if not hundreds of haunted attraction websites, not counting the site for the one I operate, I see a lot of things that these sites do right and a lot of things they do wrong.

As such, here are my lessons that everyday bloggers can glean from haunted attraction websites, including both the things everyone should emulate and the mistakes to avoid.

(Note: To illustrate this article, I’ll be using websites for haunted attractions in and around my hometown of New Orleans, LA.)

What Haunted House Sites Get Right

Obviously, haunted house sites do a great deal right as the haunted attraction market has been growing year over year, including a new year-around attraction in New York’s Time Square.

When it comes to bringing in customers, it seems haunt sites are doing their part.

But how they do this is actually pretty straightforward, haunted attraction get a lot of things right (usually), including:

  1. Great Branding: Haunted attraction sites are usually very visually appealing and are branded to work well with print, TV and outdoor advertising that accompany it. It builds an instantly-recognizable presence that customers remember.
  2. Keeping it Simple: Haunted attraction sites usually have less than a dozen pages including a home page, ticket information, calendar, an about page and directions. It’s easy to find the information you need and the site never strays far off message.
  3. Social Media: The haunt industry was one of the first to start heavily using social media, all the way back to when Myspace was king, and they are very good at it. You’ll be hard pressed to find a professional haunt without a good Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube and other social media presence.
  4. Discounts and Reason to Visit: If you want the best prices on tickets, you usually have to visit their site. Though House of Shock here recently ran a Groupon and a few other daily deals, most haunts save the best deals for their site.
  5. Great Call to Action: When you visit a haunted attraction site, you know instantly what they want you to do, namely buy a ticket, and they make it very easy to do so. They even offer great incentives for buying online (see above point).

For the most part, haunted attraction sites do their job very well, however, there’s still a lot of things that they get wrong and problems that may actually be costing them at least some customers.

Where Haunt Sites Go Wrong

For all of the things such sites do right, the fact we can generalize them so broadly isn’t a positive sign. After all, you’ll be hard pressed to, at a glance, tell the difference between two haunted attraction sites as visually they are often very similar.

But that isn’t necessarily the biggest problem that they face, there’s a slew of other issues that help to keep the humble haunted attraction site from reaching its full potential, including:

  1. Flash-Heavy Design: If you thought Flash-based Web design was dead, you haven’t visited a haunted attraction site lately. Just look at The Terror Test site for proof. Most, haunted attraction sites use Flash for the entire layout, not just elements that need it, slowing loading and hurting visitors without Flash. It also, in many cases, limits the ability to copy and paste relevant information.
  2. Poor Mobile Support: Haunts are getting better about this one and many haunts have mobile versions of their site, but many still lack a good mobile version. Very annoying for people looking up information on the road.
  3. Auto-Playing Music/Sound: My biggest pet peeve. Many haunted attraction sites auto play music and/or sound on loading, including The Mortuary here in New Orleans. Makes it awkward for anyone visiting the site in a public place, such as a computer lab.
  4. Designing for Print: Most haunt sites look like posters, meaning visually they are great but functionally the navigation is often out of the way or otherwise navigating the site is confusing. The Midnight Productions Site, which operates the 13th Gate in Baton Rouge, is an excellent example of an attractive site that can be tough to navigate.
  5. Limited Information: Most haunt sites skimp on the details to promote a sense of mystery but leave off important details like how long it takes to go through the haunt, average wait times, etc. This can be important for people planning a trip on a schedule.

While some of these problems are minor, they all make getting information off of haunted house websites a chore. When you visit several in a year, this can make the process of getting the info you need tedious and really turn off a customer that might be on the fence about stopping by.

Still, despite the drawbacks, I think haunted house sites do a lot more right than they do wrong and, as such, offer a lot of valuable lessons other webmasters should pick up on.

Bottom Line

So what can bloggers learn from all of this? It’s simple: Your site needs a clear, effective message, good branding and to be easily accessed by everyone who needs it (access in every meaning of the word).

You have to ask yourself what every haunted attraction has to ask itself when building its site: What do my visitors want? What do I want from them? And how can I make it easy for those two needs to both be met?

If you can do that with your website, even if your traffic isn’t very high, you can be very successful. After all, the easiest way to improve your station with your site isn’t to attract more visitors, but to make better use of the ones that you have and that’s something haunt sites do very, very well.

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Monday 24 October 2011

5 Really Annoying Blogging Mistakes That Will Make Your Blog Annoying To Visit

5 Really Annoying Blogging Mistakes That Will Make Your Blog Annoying To Visit

Blog MistakeOne of my biggest pet peeves when reading really good material is to read that content on a website that gives me a headache to navigate or view.

While there are many website design mistakes a blogger can makes I have compiled a list of 5 mistakes that can kill a blog before it even gets started.

1. Strange Fonts For Content Sections

While using a unique font to create your websites logo or perhaps even sidebar titles might give your blog a fresh feel that’s where unique fonts should end.  When it comes to fonts bloggers should incorporate georgia, times new roman, times or serif fonts into their content. If you view HuffingtonPost, New York Times and various other content based sites you will quickly realize that they use those standard fonts because they are easily recognizable and therefore easy to read. If you choose to use a custom font for your content I suggest polling your friends and family members to see if they find the custom font easy to read.

2. Creating A Compressed Content Area

First time web designers often make the mistake of cramming their content into a small area on their blog. For example a 250px side left sidebar followed by a 400px content  and then another 250px sidebar on the right, under that structure your content controls less than 50% of your websites realty. Remember that content is king and if you push out the king for a bunch of ads you’re likely to push out readers in the process.

3. Placing A Sidebar On The Left Side Of Your Website

Think about when you read a book, you read from left to right which means placing a sidebar on the left side of your page immediately draws a readers attention away from your content. When a visitor enters your website you want your awesome content to capture their attention immediately, this is why I suggest placing your content “above-the-fold” (top 500px of your page) and to the very left of your website.

4. Installing Videos and Audio Files That Play Automatically

I want to scream when I enter a site and videos begin to play automatically. First, it’s inconsiderate to the reader who may not be interested or able to watch videos (for example at work) and it’s annoying when I’ve begun to read an article and the “flow” in the article is disrupted by a loud video when my computer speakers are turned up. Video is a great way to increase “time-on-site” numbers but only if you don’t scare your users away by launching them before they have a chance to absorb the written content found on your pages. In cases of java based videos you might also be met by iPad and other mobile device users who can’t view your videos creating an entirely new mess for site viewers.

5. Failing To Brand Your Site

Website branding can be as simple as using the same colors throughout your site that you used for your logo and it can be far more complex. When designing a blog there are several factors I like to keep in mind, first I use consistent colors on the website to give my regular readers a sense of continuity. Second, I like to space out all sections of my site evenly, for example If I use 5px padding on my sidebar widgets I also use 5px padding to space out my content from the sidebar. I find that by creating a site that looks consistent in color and spacing users feel like the site is more “put together.” If you have the ability it’s also not a bad idea to have personalized sharing buttons created for Facebook, Twitter and other sites you use, this shows users that sharing your content is part of your website.

What website design mistakes do you commonly found when reading blogs?

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Saturday 22 October 2011

10 Commonly Done Mistakes Every Blogger Should Avoid

10 Commonly Done Mistakes Every Blogger Should Avoid

mistakes bloggersAlmost every blogger have the same dream of getting millions of visitors every month on his/her blog. However, it is quite challenging to get the massive traffic when thousand of articles are being published daily. The word I used here is challenging and not impossible, this means that, though it is exigent enough but if we avoid certain mistakes we can become a successful blogger. Blogging is one of the best way for everyone to promote their writing style professionally.

If done in a right way, blogging is a very powerful tool to generate great leads. Dedication and commitment are the major requisites to be a successful blogger followed by evading of certain mistakes.

Creating a blog is however one of the easiest thing to achieve on internet. Many free websites are now providing the features and tools which allow everyone to create their own blog.

But having a blog is just half done, when we talk about successful blogging. Creating and writing a blog is quite easy job, but the touch and tricky part comes when it is about tempting the internet traffic to your blog. Keeping the fresh and topical posts is very important to get the potential as well as returning visitors to your blog. Regular update is also a very important aspect of successful blogging. However there is a long list of things to do for a successful blogging and so is the list of things not to do.

tips

Below is a description of a few common mistakes the bloggers must avoid :

1. Niche of your blog : Niche is the thing where your blog begins, thus it is very important to select the right niche for your blog. Determine on what niche you can just be perfect and start your blog based on that particular niche. Moreover next important point is to stick with the niche. Muddling up of too many niches in one blog will certainly not take it to the height.

2. Blog Layout : Next comes the layout and the design of your blog. Make sure that the design and layout you select is appropriate for your blog niche and blog topic. In fact the layout of your blog must reflect your niche to the extent that the visitor could envisage your niche just by seeing your blog design. Select the correct colors, simple design and theme specifying the mood of the blog. For example if you are creating a blog on mediation, choose the simple and soothing colors, elegant design and neat and clear font.

3. Copied content : Content is always the king and it is the content which makes a blog successful or unsuccessful. Blogger usually copy the content from some good productive website and paste it on their blog, this hampers the blog success badly. Make sure that your idea and content both are original as well as perfectly relevant to the topic. Best content always stand out.

4. Irregular updates : People search over the internet for new and most up to date contents and if you are not updating your blog regularly visitors will never return there back. Regular updates are very important aspects which determine the success of a blog. One must post new articles daily or at least twice a week to make the blog successful.

5. Overstuffing of keywords : The SEO guys however, always suggest writing the keyword optimized content for the blog but over stuffing of the keywords may look like spam and Google nowadays is very strict with spam posting.

6. Non catchy titles : The title reflects the content of an article and if you are not giving a good, catchy and relevant title to your blog, you are just lessening the readers to half.

7. Lack or promotion : Remember that no publicity is bad publicity and if you are not promoting your blog by the proper means you are actually demoting your blog.

8. Being anonymous : People often don’t want to add their actual profile with their blog which creates a sense of unreliability in the visitors. The audience cannot connect to the blog well if you are anonymous to your blog.

9. Over stuffing of advertising : Advertising generate good revenue for your blog undoubtedly but over stuffing of advertising is never a good decision. Readers come to your blog to read the content and not to see the advertisements.

10. Giving up too early : Blogging needs patience, so if you want to be a successful blogger you need to be patient.

Guest post by:

Peter has been in recruitment industry for over 8 years now, beside blogging, and design work he also does other stuff such as, Adecco USA temp staffing services to help others, infographic design and cooking.

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Friday 21 October 2011

Four Tips For Creating A Successful Photography Blog

Four Tips For Creating A Successful Photography Blog

PhotoBlogIf you take amazing photographs that people want to view the thought of creating your very own photography blog may have entered into your mind, however unlike a standard blog there are certain considerations you will want to take that can help your pics based website gather a loyal following.


1. Make Your Photos The Focal Point Of The Website


When choosing a template for your photography blog you want your photos to stand out the moment viewers enter your pages. By isolating your work you allow your visitors imagination to run wild, soaking in your photos without becoming distracted by a lot of print the moment they enter your blogs pages.

One example of simple is better design for a photography comes from Theme Foundry and their theme titled “Photography” here’s a look at how simplicity shows off an artists work without distracting visitors:

Photography Template

You can also choose to use various photography website builder programs which are offered on “one-click blog creation” services. Typically easy photography blog builders use a portfolio type setup such as the one shown above.


2. Provide Location Information For Your Photographs


Photography lovers often want to interpret the photographs they see but they also want to know something about them that can transport them to the photographers point of view. The easiest way to accomplish this goal is to geo-tag each one of your photos. A simple way to accomplish this is to just provide the location in writing to your users. For example you might say “Photographed in Chicago, IL at 110 N. Michigan Avenue.”

If you happen to be uploading photos from your location you’re content management system might even provide automatic geo-tagging plugins. WordPress for example offers the Geo Tag plugin, a new option which adds  latitude, longitude, region, and country information to each post. For Geo Tag plugins to work you typically must upload your image in the spot you took it, making this option a great offering for photographers looking to immediately share digital photographs.


3. Provide Copyright Information


One of the best ways you can spread the word about your blog is to allow for images to be used freely by your sites visitors. One of the easiest ways to allow users to determine if they can use your photos is to provide a copyright statement. There are literally dozens of copyright attributions online that you can adapt however I find that creating my own simple copyright works best and confuses readers less than complex copyright attributions that are marred in legal jargon.

In this example you might choose to simple say “This photo may be placed on websites and in print publications with the following attribution:” at which point you might say “Photo used with permission from myphotoblog.com.” You might also state in your attribution that all websites must like back to http://myphotoblog.com. The second part of the statement helps you receive more visitors directly from a link while ensuring that your site receives search engine optimization from incoming links to your photos.


4. Create Categories That Focus Your Work


If you’re a photographer that takes a lot of photos about different subjects it makes sense to separate those works into different categories. For example a site visitor who wants to look at the photos of spring flowers you took isn’t going to appreciate browsing 10 pages of classic car photos you also recently photographed. Sometimes simple category creation is enough to please readers for example you might have “nature” and “automobiles” as categories on your website. If you happen to take nature photos of fields and flowers and fruits you can always add sub-categories to those area.

Conversely if you’re artist endeavors tend to be very focus on a certain type of photography you can break your photos into categories that focus on collection you may have created or even break them up into the type of photography used (digital, print, black & white, etc).

Here’ an example of the Imaginem WordPress theme, notice how the right sidebar allows users to choose “abstract photos” and pictures taken in “black and white” along with other options:

Imaginem WordPress Theme

When attempting to create a blog we are constantly told that “content is king” and the same goes for creating a successful photography blog, in fact your content in this case may even be more of the “king” then written websites since users will immediate see and judge the entirety of your content. That’s why it’s important to focus your site on your photos and provide users with quick access to those photos through proper categorization and location based information along with copyright attribution.

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Blogging Pro Job Board Highlights (October 17-21)

Blogging Pro Job Board Highlights (October 17-21)

Blogging Pro Job BoardIf Harold Camping can be believed, today, we will see the world end. Just because I can, let me ask you what you will do today if you knew for sure that the world’s end would be tonight?

Back to reality…here are this week’s highlights from the Blogging Pro Job Board.

Rockstar Web Developer

If you see yourself as a rock star developer and not merely a wannabe, you are perfect for PapayaHead’s job opening. “You need to be a real web developer, not a designer who knows a little html.” Capisce?

Freelance Writers for GPSmyCity

GPSmyCity.com is a well-known developer of iPhone apps for travel. They have city guides for various destinations worldwide. If you like traveling, and you know your city like the back of your hand, you might want to check out their openings. Oh, and they pay rather well!

Passionate, Web-Savvy Activists

Here’s your chance to do something worthwhile and make some money while you’re at it. Care2.com is a popular web site which takes on a variety of causes, and they want you!

General Article Writer

Is education a topic close to your heart? If so, this telecommute position is perfect for you. An educational company needs a general article writer to deliver quality content. Are you up for it?

Automotive Tech Writer

Grease monkeys who write well, here is something for you! A company needs a technical writer who knows the ins and outs of technical writing for the automotive/heavy truck industry.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

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Wednesday 19 October 2011

What to Do About Your Blogging Competition

What to Do About Your Blogging Competition

Image of two people swordfightingPretty much no blogger gets to work forever without competition. Blogging is such a crowded space that pretty much everyone has at least one other site out there that could be seen as a competitor or alternative, even if it isn’t always a direct one.

Whether you’re blogging for business, for passion or for fun, this can be a pretty heavy thought. After all, whether it’s dollars or eyeballs, you don’t want another site taking anything away from you, especially after you’ve worked so hard.

But competition online isn’t anything like competition in the bricks and mortar world. In the real world, every dollar you spend at restaurant A is one you don’t spend at restaurants B-Z. You only have so much money and can only eat so many meals. Furthermore, there’s only a certain number of people in a your region, meaning only so many people who CAN visit any of the restaurants in it.

On the Web, there’s no such limitation as there’s no cost in visiting most websites, people can literally come from anywhere and one’s time available for reading sites on a particular topic is limited only by their interest in it.

While competition on the Web is something you have to address, it isn’t something you have to fear. So what should you do when your blog faces some stiff competition? The answer is, most likely, to greet them with a hug rather than a clinched fist.

Why “Competition” Is Different Online

When businesses compete in a bricks-and-mortar world, they are always competing for things that are limited in quantity. Whether it’s potential customers in a region, the limited spending dollars those customers have or fulfilling a limited set of needs for those customers.

On the Web, those “limited” elements are either much less limited or, in many cases, completely unlimited.

Imagine, for a moment, a Web where there was just one site about the iPhone. No matter how great it was, it probably wouldn’t be nearly as popular as similar sites are in the real world as people simply wouldn’t be in the habit of turning to the Web for information about the product.

However, open up a few more sites and a community begins to form talking about it. People start to regularly turn to the Web for information and this causes the potential audience for these sites to grow. Couple that with better linking and SEO opportunities and every site in the niche has the potential to do better.

In short, though you could see all of the sites as being competition to one another, they are actually working together to grow the niche, making it a true example of a rising tide lifting all boats.

To be clear though, this doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as competition online. It’s just that many of the things that are finite in the physical world are infinite in the Web-based world. There are still some finite things, like money, but healthy competition can help encourage others to open up their wallets more by confirming the validity of the niche, thus creating new customers.

So, even if there are finite resources that you’re competing over, most likely “run them out of town” isn’t a good response to your competition. Instead, it’s important to realize just how valuable healthy competition can be to both customers and businesses alike.

Responding to Competition Well

Once you realize that competition on the Web means something very different than in the physical world, you can also see why trying to run your competition out of business is not, most likely, your best strategy.

Not only is that a lot of effort spent on doing something that won’t help your site much, but such hostility may actually hurt your niche and cost you dearly in the long term.

Instead, if there’s enough room in the niche for both of you, it’s probably wiser to spend that energy on growing your niche and make even more room for all of you.

This means doing something somewhat radical, embracing and befriending your competition.

Rather than focusing on trying to beat your competition at what they do, find ways that you can work with them. Take different angles on the niche, cover different areas and link to one another. Most importantly though, reach out to them and talk with them, make them your allies and not your enemies.

In short, treat your competition not as business rivals, but as neighbors.

Think about it, you don’t try to run your neighbors out of town just because, without them, you’d have a bigger yard. Instead, you find comfortable boundaries for all of you. Also, realize that a strong community has a lot of benefits to everyone, including “competition” websites.

If you work together as a community, you can attract new people to your niche and cause those already interested in the topic to spend more time and get more involved.

Think about it this way. Though car dealerships can be found all over, they generally cluster into strips that will have several or even dozens in a very small area. Though the dealerships are competition to one another in that most customers buy only one car, most customers visit more than one car dealership. As such, having so many in one place makes that area an attractive one for a potential car buyer to shop, increasing foot traffic and eventually sales for all the dealerships.

Websites work much the same way. A good community coupled with good SEO can generate a lot of interest, even among those who might not have visited such a site in the past. That means that everyone is better off with cooperation rather than warfare.

Bottom Line

Of course, the bigger problem with the Web is that it is an extremely crowded medium. Even if you are able to push one competitor out of business, two more will likely be there to take their place and you’ll likely be weakened by your efforts.

While competition does exist online, as I said before there are still finite resources you can vie for, most sites aren’t in competition, especially direct competition, with anyone.

If you do something original and offer something unique, no matter how many sites are in your niche, you’ll have a place carved out for you. By building that community, rather than killing your neighbors, you can make that place more valuable and larger over time.

Killing off your neighbors doesn’t improve your neighborhood, it just makes room for even worse ones to move in later, something you can avoid by making your community a better place.

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Tuesday 18 October 2011

Tips for Writing HowTo Blog Posts

Tips for Writing HowTo Blog Posts

howtoIf you are looking for ideas for blog posts, how to blogs can be a great concept. The success of practically oriented blogs/websites like Ehow attest to the fact that people like how to articles. These types of posts immediately capture the reader's attention with practical information that is useful and easy to follow. You may want to consider creating a blog solely around an instructional concept or you may want to simply include these sorts of posts along with other ones in a the blog you have. The following are some tips for creating great step by step blog posts:

Keep Steps Reasonable Length

Often how to blogs are arranged as a series of steps. These steps may or may not be numbered or be in bullet form, but regardless arranging them as steps to be read sequentially tends to work well as an approach. This allows the reader to move through the steps in order, perhaps even as they are undertaking the task in question, and get a good clear sense of how to proceed. If you had a blog about IT recruiting services, then the length of each blog post could be rather 700-800 words.

It is important to keep these steps short and to the point. These do not need to be as short as two or three sentences, though this can be effective, but they probably shouldn't be composed of many long rambling paragraphs. Keep them concise and somewhere between a few sentences and a paragraph in length.

Find out what People want to Know how to Do

If you're looking for something to write a how to blog about and traffic is what you're after, you're going to need to find out what people would most like to know how to do. You can either consider skills you yourself have and in which you think others would like to be instructed, or you can try to fin d popular skill/activities that are current and popular. You might want to do internet searches on the phrase "how to" or that term along with various others and see which pages are popular.

Of course, the most popular subjects will present a lot of competition, so gauge accordingly. If you feel you can rank well in search engines through SEO and so forth for a particular topic, you may want to check out a very popular one. If, however, you would like to be up against less competition, you may want to seek niches. This may in fact be a very good strategy – find a more obscure skill and you will have a much easier time ranking in search engines for it. Either way, try to find skills that seem to be of either current interest or a general ongoing interest.

Read Other "How To" Blogs on the Topic

You may want to read other how to blogs on the same topic in order to get a sense of whether you can improve on it and just to fill in your knowledge about it. This will help you to create the most thorough blog possible and put your how to articles into context. You may want to find background information or parts that other bloggers have left out and make a point of including them in your blog.

Consider Including Pictures/Video

Pictures and/or video can really make your how to blog posts sparkle. They can help make the content more clear and easy to discern as well as give your blog a fun, professional, and engaging appearance. They are usually quite easy to embed in your blog content so consider this option.

Use Examples

It's often a good idea to use concrete examples in a how to blog. An illustration makes the content more vivid and interesting to read. For instance if you were writing about how to build a certain type of furniture, you might want to spice up the content by creating a hypothetical woodworking character named Joe building a specific item in his garage. This personalizes the content and makes it easier for readers to identify with.

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5 Signs that Your Blog is Dying and How to Cure It the Simple Way

5 Signs that Your Blog is Dying and How to Cure It the Simple Way

As blog owners, there are times when we are too overwhelmed by our blog's physical appearance, especially if our blog has an impressive design, a good amount of traffic and followers, and good search engine rankings. Yet having these positive traits does not mean your blog is in good condition. Sometimes, these traits can be deceiving, too.
So how will you know if your blog is in a terrible condition?

Your traffic is in danger

According to blog experts, a continuous diminishing rate in traffic is the first sign of a weakening blog. Traffic downfall is just a normal occurrence on blogs, but having an unremitting or a month-long fall in numbers is a different story. They say that low traffic rate can be considered alarming when it remains static in a very low point (e.g., 40-60% lower than your average traffic) for a long period of time (e.g. 2-3 weeks).

Automated visitors

Having a hundred hits and visitors a day does not mean your blog is soaring. As a blogger, your moderation should not be just limited to checking your daily comments and stats; delving where these stats are coming from is part of your responsibility as a blog owner. You have to know if these hits are from a single blog owner, a single search engine query, from a mobile device or from automated devices that help some furtive frauds to on the Web. Automated outbound traffic is useless in traffic, for it will never contribute in adding some points to improve your rankings. Technically speaking, these automated hits are nothing but useless spams.

Negative comments

Comments are healthy indication that someone is reading your blog. Be it positive or negative, blog experts consider all comments advantageous, for they both contribute to the expansion of your blog's search engine familiarization (indexing and spidering) and network popularity. However, they said that negative and positive comments should be in symmetry: the former should not overpower the latter in number and stats.
Negative comments are healthy components of blog thread comment; they spice up the conversation, attract more commenters and readers, and solidify the network and blog relationship in the constraints of the blog. On the other hand, having handfuls of them can ruin your blog, too.

No comments at all

Let us face it. No one wants to blog alone. We all love to hear comments; we all die for other people's attention. Therefore, if you have been blogging for a year and you haven't yet experienced the joy of receiving comments, the you're in a big trouble. Your blog may be lacking in promotion, in appeal, charisma, or worse, in substance.

Curing the malady

If you really want to save your dying blog, writing more contents and excellent post is still the best thing you can do. Follow the cliché "Content is King" and you will never go wrong. However, you should not just stop from writing contents. Have your blog redesigned by an SEO-knowledgeable designer, promote it on three leading social networking sites (Google+, Facebook, Twitter), and don't stop connecting and building links with niche-related blogs and websites.

Your author Warner is an avid writer and is interested in Resell SEO and Private Label SEO.

 

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